Expectation and Availability of Social Support in Cancer and Diabetic Women Patients Awasthi P.*, Mishra R. C. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. *Email-id: awasthip9@gmail.com
Online published on 10 January, 2012. Abstract During chronic illness women patients pass through significant life changes. Lack of psychosocial and emotional support during illness interferes with their psychological functioning. In the present study the nature of expected and obtained social support by women suffering from cervix cancer (n=100) and diabetes (n=100) was analyzed. With respect to the delivery of support, the findings showed that diabetic women received greater amount of emotional, informational, social and practical supports than women suffering from cervix cancer. While educated women received greater emotional, informational, and social support than uneducated women, urban women received practical support more than rural women. The findings indicated that both cancer and diabetic patients had almost similar level of expectations for emotional, informational, social companionship and practical supports, however, some differences hi the expectation of supports were evident due to educational and residential background of women. The implications of these findings for women patients are discussed. Top Keywords Cervix cancer, diabetes, social support, received support, network structure, support quality. Top |